I have a project with a few front-end frameworks obtained via and managed by Nuget (Twitter Bootstrap, jQuery, jQuery UI ...).
I want to keep the files in my project, but remove them from Nuget's grip (I don't like the way Nuget organizes these files).
When I un-check the project for a library Nuget removes all the files it had installed, unless I've editted them (e.g. I over-wrote bootstrap.css with a customized version from getbootstrap.com).
As I do this from time-to-time, instead of backing up the /Content and /Scripts directories and adding back in the relevant files after removing the library from Nuget, I'd like to be able to dissociate all files of a particular library from Nuget at once without removing them from the project's directories. Is that possible, by either the GUI or the console?
I don't know if this issue is specific to a version(s) of Visual Studio, but mine is VS 2012
Can you elaborate for the part of "I don't like the way Nuget organizes these files"? If you remove NuGet from the picture, the good things that it does for you (detection of package updates, automatic package restore etc.) will be gone.
If you absolutely need to do this, one possible hack would be deleting packages.config from the project.
Related
I am trying to install knockoutjs and typescript in a .net core app via Nuget.
It shows in Packages but doesn't install anything in a scripts folder as has previously in asp.net.
What am I missing?
TL;DR ASP.NET Core no longer works in that way (packages copying javascript/css content into your project). You need to adapt your workflow.
.NET Core projects only work in SDK-style projects, and SDK style projects only use NuGet's PackageReference, not packages.config. The docs on migrating from packages.config to PackageReference list one package compatibility issue as not supporting the content folder, which is how in packages.config those assets are copied into your project on package install.
I can't find a doc listing recommendations for ASP.NET Core apps, but my understanding is you can either use LibMan, or use NPM, which is in line with basically the rest of the web development industry outside of .NET has been doing. If you use the new project templates to create a new ASP.NET Core Angular or ASP.NET Core React app, you'll see they create a ClientApp folder that uses npm and all the official react/angular CLI tools. The MVC template has copies of jQuery and bootstrap, without an obvious way how to update them.
might be some unsync, remove the packages folder from the solution and restore the packages again. It will fix the issue. Also check the output window, that will show the list of errors.
It shows in Packages but doesn't install anything in a scripts folder
as has previously in asp.net.
First, I agree with zivkan. It is a feature of PackageReference Nuget Management format.
VS has two format to manage nuget packages: Packages.config and PackageReference.
Since new sdk format projects(Net Core and Net Standard) only use PackageReference to manage nuget packages,it will be very different from the effect reflected by the packages.config package management format.
When you use Content files from the nuget packages with PackageReference, it will lose files from the Scripts folder.
Just as this document said, it has such compatibility issues.
Actually, you can enter C:\Users\xxxx\.nuget\packages\knockoutjs\3.5.1 and find there is a folder called Content, Nuget will copy the content of that folder into your project when you install this nuget package.
But Content folder can be recognized by Packages.config format, and as far as I know, ContentFiles folder is used in PackageReference to add the content into your project. So in your situation, the nuget package should include ContentFiles folder at the same time. See this official document.
But the knockoutjs nuget package does not have contentfiles folder. That is why net framework projects with packages.config has the content files while new sdk projects does not have it.
And this behavior change can only be effective when you create the nuget package, so you ca n’t make any kind of change, you can only contact the author of the package to make this modification, and let him add this function as soon as possible to apply to the new SDK format project.
Suggestion
So So for now, you can try these:
1) you can either manually Add the content file from C:\Users\xxxx\.nuget\packages\knockoutjs\xxxx\Content to the project by Adding Existing Items.
2) roll back to use Net Framework projects with packages.config.
3) contact with the author on this link.
I recently successfully switched all of our projects over to automatic NuGet restore. To do this I followed this guide. Everything worked great, I was able to delete my /packages folder and restore to my heart's content.
One of the steps in that guide says to edit your .csproj file and remove the EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports related element.
The problem I am having now is that, after going in and downgrading one of my projects libraries, NuGet seems to have automatically added the EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports related element back into my .csproj file.
Is there some other setting I should be changing to prevent NuGet from doing this? I would rather not have to edit my .csproj file every time I make a NuGet related change.
Is there some other setting I should be changing to prevent NuGet from doing this?
I`m afraid the answer is not if you going in and downgrading one of your projects libraries.
The target "EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports" is used to ensures that the imported .props or .targets files are indeed imported in the old way "Enable Package Restore". NuGet has supported NuGet MSBuild support since NuGet 2.5.
Since Nuget 2.7+, Microsoft has dropped support for the 'Enable NuGet Package Restore' in VS2015 and you need to do some manual changes to either migrate old solutions or add the feature to new solutions. Nuget Automatic Package Restore has changed in Nuget 2.7+. Unfortunately, it looks like a non-backward compatible change. We have some developers on 2.7 and before who will now need to upgrade to 2.7+. In this case, NuGet will automatically added the EnsureNuGetPackageBuildImports related element back into your .csproj file when you going in and downgrading one of your projects libraries.
To resolve this, we advice that do not mix 'old' and new methods for automatic package restoration(Remove that files when you use automatic package restoration).
Besides, if going in and downgrading one of your projects libraries is unavoidable, there is a PS script can help you remove it more convenient:
DisableNuGetPackageRestore.ps1
I've got a packages.config file checked into source control. This specifies the exact version of the Nuget dependency I want. We have our own NuGet repository. We are creating these NuGet packages ourselves.
<packages>
<package id="Dome" version="1.0.0.19" targetFramework="net45" />
<package id="Dome.Dojo" version="1.0.0.19" targetFramework="net45" />
</packages>
These packages have some JavaScript files which when you add the Nuget package as a reference in Visual Studio are copied to the Scripts folder in the project.
I don't want to check these JS files in to source control, I just want to check in the packages.config file.
When my project builds in Team City (or when I build in Visual Studio after a fresh checkout) it doesn't copy the JS files from the NuGet package. There's a question here explaining a similar problem:
NuGet package files not being copied to project content during build
But, the solution in the answer to that question doesn't work for me; that solution uses ReInstall, which is problematic because it can automatically upgrade the version in the packages.config file (say if a dependency is specified as a >=).
The whole point of this is that I want to be able to checkout a revision from my source control, and build that version with the right dependencies AND I want to use the nice packaging features of NuGet. So, I don't want any "automatically update to the latest version during the build."
There's an issue against NuGet (http://nuget.codeplex.com/workitem/2094) about NuGet files not restoring content files. And it's Marked as Closed By Design.
Thinking about how this works a little more, it appears to me (but I'm not 100% sure) that for assemblies NuGet has a different behaviour - it doesn't copy them into the project, instead it references them from the location in the packages folder. It strikes me that js files in the NuGet package should be referenced analogous to how dlls are referenced.
Is there a way to construct a NuGet package so that it references the JS as links in the project (in a similar way to how you can add an existing File as a Link in VS)? And would this solve my problem?
If not then I'll take the advice given by Jeff Handley when closing ticked Nuget Issue 2094 mentioned above:
The option you'd have is to create a new console executable that
references NuGet.Core, and you could build a supplemental package
restore for your own use that copies package contents into the
project.
Writing my own command line tool to copy the contents does seem like I'm pushing water uphill here - am I doing something fundamentally wrong?
The underlying problem here is Visual Studio's relatively poor support of JavaScript projects and JavaScript's lack of built-in module loader.
For C#, when you install a package it adds a reference in your .csproj file to the assembly on disk. When you build, MSBuild knows to copy the thing referenced to the bin directory. Since you aren't checking in your bin directory, this all works great.
Unfortunately for JavaScript, the build system isn't nearly as matured and there aren't well defined guidelines for NuGet to follow. Ideally (IMO), Visual Studio would not run web sites directly from your source directory. Instead, when you built it would copy the JavaScript files, CSS and HTML files to a bin directory from which they would be executed. When debugging, it would map those back to the original JavaScript or TypeScript files (so if you make a change it isn't to a transient file). If that were to happen then there is now a well-defined build step and presumably a well-defined tag for JavaScript files (rather than just "content"). This means that NuGet would be able to leverage that well-defined MSBuild tag and package authors could leverage the NuGet feature to do the right thing.
Unfortunately, none of the above is true. JavaScript files are run in-place, If you did copy them to bin on build Visual Studio would do the wrong thing and editing from a debugger would edit the transient files (not the originals). NuGet therefore has no well-defined place to put files so it leaves the decision up to the package author. Package authors know that the average user is just going to be running directly from source (no build-step) so they dump files into the source folder where they must be checked in to version control.
The entire system is very archaic if you are coming from a modern ecosystem like C# where someone took time to think these things through a bit.
What you could do is create an MSBuild task that, before build, would go through all of your packages, look for content, and copy that content to the desired location. This wouldn't be terribly difficult, though would take a bit of work.
Also, package authors could include a build-task that does this in their package so that before-build all of their content was copied local. Unfortunately, if only some package authors do this then you end up with weird fragmentation where some packages need to be committed to version control and others do not.
When a package is installed into a project, NuGet in fact performs these operations,
Download the package file from source;
Install the package into the so called packages folder, which is $(SolutionDir)\packages by default;
Install the package into the project, which consists of adding references to DLLs, copying content files into the project directory etc.
When a package is restored, only the first two steps are executed. Projects will not be touched by nuget package restore. Which is why the js files in your project will not be "restored".
The only solution for now is to check in the js files in your project.
If you are the owner of the package then you could use the nuget package i've created to be able to have a folder called "Linked" in the package and have a simple Install.ps1 and Uninstall.ps1 (one liners) to add every file in the nuget package's linked folder as existing to the project.
https://github.com/baseclass/Contrib.Nuget#baseclasscontribnugetlinked
I didn't try out how publication treats linked files, the problem is debugging the Project, as the JavaScript files will be missing in the directories.
If you are using git as source control you could try my nuget package which ignores all the nuget content files and automatically restores them before building.
Step by step example in my blog: http://www.baseclass.ch/blog/Lists/Beitraege/Post.aspx?ID=9&mobile=0
I am trying to use NuGet Package Restore with VS2010 + Visual Sourcesafe. It is working partially for me.
Where this is coming from: NuGet not getting missing packages
My Solution2 has asp.net website[Project1 in above image] that has another nuget package installed. Now another developer opens the Solution2 via VS2010, the automatic restore works for Library projects in Solution1. It gets all missing packages for Library projects that is referenced in this Solution2 and I see them in Solution1/packages folder.
But for Website it says external dlls i.e. pacakages missing. The issue I think is because website doesn't have a .csproj file and so it doesn't know things needs to be restored.(http://nuget.codeplex.com/workitem/1663)
Making it work partially:
Added packages/repositories.config to website solution (What is a solution folder in visual studio)
Another developer goes to VSS and get that packages folder manually. Now when he builds the solution, the Package Manager Console prompts for restore i.e. has "Restore" button. On clicking it will bring the AjaxControlToolkit.
Questions:
- Is the above approach the only and best available for Websites?
When the developer clicks "Restore" button it brings packages for Library as well to Solution1/packages along with packages for nuget. Any reason why would it do that?
Any ideas on above issues?
Per you link, nuget doesn't support websites. If you really need to use Nuget, and let's face it, everyone does, then in my opinion the best approach is to switch your website over to a web application, at which point visual studio will create a csproj file for you, detailing the nuget packages that are contained in the project.
HTH
For adding Solution level "packages" folder with repositories.config to VS Solution Explorer, I created a Solution folder and added repositories.config.
That created packages folder in the SourceSafe when I checked-in the solution.
I also found someone pointing the same thing here.
Update: I think the newer nuget is restoring the packages. But one other trick for nuget to add the dll to the bin folder it to check-in the .refresh files for AjaxControlToolkit and its dependent packages.
With newer versions of NuGet it is possible to configure a project to automatically restore NuGet packages so that the packages folder doesn't need to be included in the source code repository. Good.
However, this command adds a new .nuget folder and there is a binary there, NuGet.exe. This can also be re-created automatically by Visual Studio and so it doesn't feel correct to add that to version control. However, without this folder Visual Studio won't even load the solution properly.
How do you people deal with this? Add .nuget to source control? Run some command line script before opening the solution?
This post is old, you should not be using solution level NuGet package restore anymore. As of version 2.7+ there is an option in the NuGet setup to automatically restore packages on build.
So the .nuget folder can be deleted and the option removed from your projects.
http://docs.nuget.org/docs/reference/package-restore
UPDATE: With the release of NuGet 4.x and .NET Standard 2.0, when you use the new csproj format you can now use package references, ironically reintroducing the dependency on msbuild to restore packages, but now packages are a first class citizen of msbuild. The link above also makes mention of the PackageReference, but the following announcement details it better:
https://blog.nuget.org/20170316/NuGet-now-fully-integrated-into-MSBuild.html
And the NuGet 4.x RTM announcement, which ironically isn't as useful:
https://blog.nuget.org/20170308/Announcing-NuGet-4.0-RTM.html
UPDATE 2: Apparently with VS2017 you can even use package references with classic csproj projects, but they aren't backwards compatible anymore, and there have been some problems with restoring package sub-dependencies. I'm sure that will all be resolved.
#Richard Szalay's answer is right - you don't need to commit nuget.exe. If for some reasons Visual Studio does not automatically download the nuget.exe, make sure you have the following set to true in the nuget.targets file:
<!-- Download NuGet.exe if it does not already exist -->
<DownloadNuGetExe Condition=" '$(DownloadNuGetExe)' == '' ">true</DownloadNuGetExe>
Close the VS solution, reopen it and build it. Visual Studio should download nuget.exe automatically now.
According to this thread, the .nuget folder should be version controlled.
You need to commit .nuget\nuget.targets, but not nuget.exe. The targets will download the exe if it doesn't exist, as long as you change DownloadNuGetExe to true in nuget.targets
Although I usually don't like the idea of adding exe's to source control, I would suggest that source control should contain anything that is required in order to open, build and execute the project.
In this case it sounds like the .nuget folder is a required dependency. Therefore it ought to be under source control.
The only question left, that you need to research, is how NuGet is going to react if that folder is marked read-only, which TFS will do once it has been checked in.
Update:
I did a little more research on this as I've never used NuGet before. http://blog.davidebbo.com/2011/03/using-nuget-without-committing-packages.html
I would suggest that probably what you want to do is make NuGet a requirement that has to be installed on every developers workstation.
Further, you should place in source control the batch file required to get a workstation ready to start editing the project. The batch file is going to run the commands necessary to get and install the dependency packages.
Beyond that I'd say you might want to contact NuGet directly to ask them how, exactly, this is supposed to work.
Now that nuget supports package restoration we're looking at it more closely.
We use Subversion for source control, and my initial thoughts are that .nuget should be added to our repository, but added using svn:externals so that it points to a single location.
That way we can automatically push out new versions to all developers and projects. For projects on release branches, rather than HEAD, we can specify the revision of svn:externals reference if we want to leave nuget alone.
We have a lot of projects, so it also means not duplicating nuget.exe multiple times in the repo.
We have the nuget.config file in the folder, as it has the references to our internal Nuget server, using the Package Sources area:
https://docs.nuget.org/consume/nuget-config-settings
Apart from this reason, you should let Visual Studio handle the downloading of packages.